So Bednar uses a quote from ETB to blame members [parents] for scaring away their children from the creepiness of the temple.

He [Bednar] quoted former prophet Ezra Taft Benson in saying that some members have erred on the side of caution in discussing the temple with their children and grandchildren, saying too little for fear they might reveal too much. In essence, Bednar clarified that young people will be better prepared for the temple if parents discuss with them everything except “the special symbols associated with sacred covenants” and “the holy information that we specifically promise in the temple not to reveal.

-Uh no. A very big NO!

I took the year long temple prep class WHEN ETB was the profit. It was the CHURCH and their crummy handbook with a teacher that had to promise not to say anything REVEALING about the temple and its "TOO SACRED TO TALK ABOUT" but there will be a time and place where everything will make sense.

And the temple never made sense. I was uncomfortable and I was naked while many people ran in and out of the initiatory room. Now the church wants to blame my parents, who were scared about discussing anything about the temple for fear of losing their exaltation to the mormon god.

Yeah, it's like I was in a different church than Bednar.

Once again blaming the members. It's NEVER the church's or the leaders' fault.

They pound it in the members' brains about it all being too sacred to talk about outside the temple but they don't clarify what they CAN talk about, other than they make "sacred covenants." Members are simply erring on the side of caution so they don't reveal too much.

I remember when a fellow missionary snapped at me because I was talking about how God's real name was Elohim. He though that was a sacred part of the temple ceremony and I wasn't supposed to say Elohim outside of the temple.

Why doesn't Bednar or the leadership outline EXACTLY what is too sacred and then say the rest is okay to talk about?

Ha ha ha

I got an earful as a missionary because I answered a late night the phone call the wrong way. The zone leader went berserk when I said "What is wanted?"

I call bullshit on that.

For one, we were taught NEVER TO DISCUSS WHAT GOES ON IN THE TEMPLE and second, if we let on what insanity really happens in the temple, our kids WOULD NOT GO.

My daughter knew what goes on and even she was shocked. I had told her everything while she was an anti-mormon in her late teens. After she went through, she talked to her dad about what she found disturbing. She felt she could discuss it with him since he has been through the temple--NOT. She doesn't know all the rules of mormonism, but she obviously didn't dare ask her good mormon mothers about it. She wouldn't dare talk to me about it as she knows how anti I am. My ex doesn't talk about his issues with the church, but he told me what she talked about. She was DISTURBED.

If mormon parents were honest about what goes on, NONE of their kids would get married in the temple AND THAT IS WHY they say it is sacred and that we shouldn't discuss it.

I lived like they told me to and the temple blew my mind. I only went 4 or 5 times. (Do sealings to someone you don't know and then see how truly bizarre it is.)

I imagine that just having to justify aloud to their shocked and appalled teenagers would also cause some parents to question it as well.

It's one thing to believe something in your head. It's sometimes quite another thing to actually hear yourself try to put words to what you believe.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2019 11:24AM by GregS.

I think saying nothing is the best way to stay neutral. Like, when you see a movie, and I want my daughter to see the same movie, I don't tell her anything about the plot, because I want her to be surprised, and form her own opinions about the movie.

Likewise, I obeyed the Mormon orders, and said nothing to her about the temple. I had to endure paying tithing and attending church for 5 months, to see her married. She wanted me to go through with her for the first time. I hadn't been in years, and we always took the longest with the switching around of the robes, sashes, aprons, veils, etc, with the rest of the audience sitting there waiting for us to finish. Throughout, I remained steadfast, calm, and silent. We never talked about it afterwards, either. After her wedding ceremony--and too much time spent photographing the temple with everybody posed in front of it--was over, and we were back in the sweaty, crowded "Brides' Room" locker room, rushing like crazy to get to the reception on time, she started to cry, and she said, "This is not what I imagined my wedding to be like."

I was glad I had not forced my opinion onto her. I only reassured her that her "Real Wedding" was yet to happen. We were going to enjoy the reception of her dreams, just as she had planned it, with all of her family and friends, and everyone was going to have a great time. It was wonderful, and so was the honeymoon. They never went to the temple again, and that was 15 years ago. They're still active Mormons, but my daughter does not wear the underwear.

Bednar is right that if parents want their kids to go to the temple, they should talk it up, make it seem less creepy, and "sell it" to the kids. However, I doubt if that would do much good. Why not threaten and bully the kids, instead? Yeah, tell the kids that if they don't go to the temple, in the hereafter they will have a "meager roof" over their heads, be separated from their families, or be in outer darkness! Try that! Oh, the Mormons have tried that for years. Nelson isn't trying anything new.

Oh yeah, it is definitely the temple itself and its secret-combination rituals for the Dead, the nakedness, the dressing and undressing, the whispers, the creepy oaths, symbols, hand-shakes, chanting, separation of men and women, the silly costumes and the costly entrance fee that turn people off! LOL, the parents have no control over all of that.

Sorry--I'm going to stop ranting, and go to work, now.

It is the member's fault for everything bad in Mormonism. The Holy Ghost is always hanging out with the 12, er 15.

Back in the late 80s when I took my non English speaking wife to the temple, the temple president told me I could talk with my wife about the temple once, to make sure she understood everything. (The temple workers were real supportive of her. They had headsets and cards in her native language.)

Also how many of us swore the we would keep the temple secret and never reveal what we did and "rather than do suffer my life to be taken."?

I prefer "TOO STUPID TO TALK ABOUT"!

It's "Silly...NOT Secret OR Sacred"!

Or so it seems to me...

Whatever goes wrong in the church, it's surely the members fault. Of that we can be certain.

Devoted Exmo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Whatever goes wrong in the church, it's surely the
> members fault. Of that we can be certain.


All of the above in this thread describes gaslighting.

Haha! What do you expect from 15 guys who are at the top of a top down organization who feel they can boss the congregation around all they want and they don't have to listen to anyone because they are the Lord's anointed.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

With christianity dwindling. With LGBTQ becoming more widely accepted. With the church growth being stalled for a decade you think these idiots would get a clue.

These guys are going to double down on crazy. I think everyone was interested in this conference to see which direction they are going to take. Now we know. We are prophets and apostles and we are always right! Now bend over and take it up the ass!

Yeah. In today's climate that attitude only means more exits. We will see more former GA's on Mormon Stories in the future saying they had no idea the church was so flawed when the missionaries sold them on the church 40 years ago.

Well thank's to YouTube and NewNameNoah. Our kids can learn plenty about the temple.

Ok Bednar. No problemo. Parents can teach their kids plenty about the temple thanks to the internet.

> Well thank's to YouTube and
> NewNameNoah. Our kids can
> learn plenty about the temple.
>

Truly NewNameNoah is doing ghawd's work in saving the members from ignorance.

Geez. Back in the day we could know NOTHING. But we were told that the first time you go through, your parent, or whoever will be right there with you every step of the way. What's the first thing they do? Tell you to all go to the washing and anointing room and Mommy will stay in the chapel until you get back.

Then we go with them, are told to get naked and put this poncho with open sides over us and sit in a chair and let creepy old ladies touch our bodies, including all private parts. It was all downhill from there.

When my daughter went through, I was determined to tell her everything. I'd already figured out I couldn't tell her the things I swore to have my throat slit, my heart ripped out or be disemboweled over. But I thought I'd given her a good idea. At least she knew the men and women sit on different sides of the room. But even then, she was freaked out. And she didn't have to go through the penalties, although I think they still did naked touching at the time.

So yeah, now that all the super freaky stuff is taken out, you can talk about it. What's to say? Any kid worth their weight in salt would have already googled it anyway and have a good idea. Lucky them. Weren't so cool in the olden days.

And that's why I re-freaking-fused to ever do initiatory ever again.Being naked with nothing more than a piece of plastic covering you made me feel rather uncomfortable.

My sister got her endowments in the Salt Lake City Temple, where she said that an old lady dressed her in her garments for the first time. Talk about creepy!

How dare Bednar blame the members for not talking about the temple when they were told by the "authorities" to not talk about it. There were penalties if you talked about it outside the temple. Heck, there were even penalties if you threw away the temple garments without first cutting out the sacred stitched on symbols. Bednar is a real doofus.

It is never the organizaqtion's fault. It is ALWAYS the member's fault.

One of the the things that surprised me when I started reading message boards like this and listening to podcast interviews with former Mormons was the number of people who were creeped out, or at least felt disoriented or uncomfortable during their first visit to the temple. I felt that way too, but never dared say so as a believing member.

I remember feeling a general awkwardness and disorientation about switching the robe from one shoulder to another and tying that ridiculous string from my baker hat to the loop on my shoulder, then changing from the left shoulder to the right shoulder. I felt like the last kid working on the test or quiz in elementary school.

Mr. Bednar still does not draw a very clear line in discerning what to talk about and what a members should not reveal. In one sense everything in the experience is building to exchanging the signs and tokens at the veil. The whole thing is just weird. In my view, the problem was that we felt unable to say how weird it was, because one was expected to say how spiritually uplifting temple attendance is.

Perhaps this is a symptom of a greater problem of LDS, Inc. and similarly behind the times organizations. They always think that the problem people have with what they are doing lies in the organization's inability to communicate effectively about what it does and why. But, it never occurs to them that the substance of what they are doing is root of their difficulty.

I found other people's stories here at RFM about their temple experiences to be refreshing; it helped me to feel that I wasn't the only one that was extremely uncomfortable at the temple. I really was hard on myself for feeling so awful and confused when attending.

I will never forget finally pushing through the yards of gauze into the Celestial room and there were my parents--glowing, dying for me to say how wonderful and spiritual the endowment had been.

"In my mind I'm thinking,'The garden room with the upside down pentagrams and the Dick and Jane style play? The Pay Lay Ale and veils and hands over heads and throat slitting gestures? And Satan, the methodist minister has priesthood and the coolest apron and seems to be the only one who has a clue as to what is going on as Elohim keeps asking what's up? WTF?'

'And the Lone and Dreary World room that was like a Sacrament Mtg where you are trying to stay awake?'

'Handshakes and secret words to get into heaven?'

I smiled benevolently willing a gleam to be in my eye just as some elderly matron patted me on the shoulder and invited me to leave. Like you, I felt awful and confused. I get the number they did on you.

After my mission we had to go to Orem temple all the time while at BYU and by then it was all on screen and seemed even more ridiculous. By then they couldn't make me feel awful and confused anymore. I knew stupid when I saw it.

Thanks D and D.

I fell for the hype and wanted to see the special room that contained books (?) and other materials where all these temple attending members were visiting because they had TESTIFIED that they had learned so much KNOWLEDGE from their many trips. So there I was standing in the renowned celestial room and I was looking for a secret room where all the great knowledge of heaven and earth would be revealed to me. And I couldn't find it!

I didn't want to ask on my first visit so I started to sit down in the fancy hotel lobby chair and my Dad extended his hand and pulled me back up. In his not very quiet temple voice (he was hard of hearing). "They don't like us to rest in these chairs. Let's go over here."

Now you're talking! I thought this was it. I'm going to the special room. So he led me down the stairs and through a hallway or two and pushed open a big heavy door. Dad led me back to the changing room. Boy was I disappointed.

I love that you thought there would be a room with "Books of Knowledge." Haha. That is too good. I actually thought we would get to see at least one angel. Not kidding. I mean, the way they always talked about the temple my expectations were through the roof.

The only thing that could have really completed the experience is if Peggy Lee had been standing at the exit singing her most famous song, "Is that all there is?"

The best part of the day was going to Harmon's Kentucky Fried Chicken cafe down the block when we left.

The stigma of throat slashing and body slashing threats remains. With such ritual death threats being issued routinely against the church's most devout followers (up until 1990), how can the church blame the members? No one was freak-out by the sashes and funny bakers hats. They would have talked about that if their lives had not been threatened in a ceremony if they didn't keep their mouths shut. Everyone knew that the whole ceremony was bat-shit crazy and spiritually damaging because of the gruesome death threats. No one wanted to say anything that could expose what they had submitted themselves to. The mormon God is to blame. Maybe he should have his name removed from the church too. Maybe it was never his to begin with. The church leaders were wrong to pull that crap on their members and now the chickens are coming home to roost. The so-called Prophets and Apostles are responsible for what the church has done and they should be ashamed. Of course, they have no shame and thus blame the members.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/11/2019 10:23AM by azsteve.

So Bednar, why didn't the Family Home Evening manual have a lesson on pantomiming the throat slashing?

I quit going after that one creep at the veil wanted to do the six points of true fellowship!

Wait, I thought there were only five.

Oh, wait again, oh my.

The hype does not live up to the reality.

They can dumb down the hype, but the temple ceremony is so banal that no spin you put on it can soften the blow. It is so stupid and hollow and even silly. How they going to tell you that in Temple Prep? Besides mysterious ways, God also works in ridiculous ways? Yeah. That's it!

This is "Blame the messenger, not the message" type crap--just what you always get from Bednar, et al.

I was never told a thing about what went on in the temple by my folks. They first went through in 1959 after mom drank the Koolaid...I'm guessing that was still in the throat slitting/disembolment era.

Even to this day my TBM family members are super hush hush about the temple. A few years ago something about the temple came up and my sister quickly said, 'we're not supposed to talk about it' and changed the subject. That was before I learned the truth, so it just made me go hmmm. Ever since I found out about what went on in the temple (I learned about it almost 2 years ago when I found this website)....I literally cannot look at my parents the same. Now that I know what they did on their wedding day, and what they used to go off and do on a Friday night while they hired a babysitter for us kids, as they shuffled off with their little suitcases...and I feel bad for the 3 of my siblings that actually got married in the temple. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into. Luckily those siblings all got married in the early 2000s...after the death threats were done away with. They probably don't know about it and wouldn't believe me if I told them...it would be 'anti-Mormon lies'.

They're not weird, or embarrassing, or anything.

When all else fails. Blame the members.

I went to the temple for the first time after my convert husband had been a member for the required one year waiting period. My mother panicked when she realized we intended to go by ourselves. She HAD to be there, so we made that happen. I thought her feelings were hurt because we asked her to babysit instead of inviting her to come with us, but in retrospect I realize she needed to be there to gaslight my reactions to the too-scared-to-talk-about shenanigans.

harbinger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I thought her feelings were hurt because we asked
> her to babysit instead of inviting her to come
> with us, but in retrospect I realize she needed to
> be there to gaslight my reactions to the
> too-scared-to-talk-about shenanigans.

Interesting. I wonder if this is the reason my own mother freaked out when I only invited my older brother to escort me through the temple.

My family didn't get the opportunity to gaslight me into thinking it was wonderful.

This makes me irate.... irate like in how I felt about the MormonCult's bait and switch LGBTQ "revelation" handling with no damn apology for all the horrific hurt, family relation damage, and even deaths they caused.

Bednar knows for sure that all along it has been the cult who has set the policy, the rule, the demand, that the temple ceremony be kept secret. It has gone on, just in my memory, for decades. I call him out for lying.

I went to the temple in 1965 for endowments and to be married. I was not told one solitary iota about the temple other than it was so, so SACRED and SECRET, and that it would be the most wonderful day of my life. This is what I knew.

Bednar, like Nelson, Holland, and Oaks all were covering topics in their April GC talks which they could spin to paint the nasty, mean picture that the members were.... let's see, too secretive with their family members about the temple, too spiritually lazy, too noisy in the Lord's chapel and even in the foyer at SM, and too willing to forget that God's laws are the only ones that matter.

Positive? Helpful? Appreciative ANY PLACE in the sermons of all the hard, often grunt work the members do?

Bednar, maybe if I had been given ANY information about the temple I would have been able to view it in a different light because in my blindness I was "blind-sighted" by having to get naked, being touched inappropriately, having to slit my own throat and belly if I dared speak of what went on in the temple, wearing clothes that seemed ridiculous and silly, having to swear that I would obey my husband in all things and give all that I have to the church should I be commanded, then having to be manhandled by some man I did not know hiding behind a curtain while ALL the ceremony wording made me know for sure I was viewed as "way damn less than a man".

This was my wedding day mind you.....my wedding day. I was doing what I had been taught in the church was the greatest thing to do to gain happiness, to gain life eternal in the CK. Yet, here I was, traumatized, exhausted, so disappointed and in shock.

When I was married, all I really wanted to do was be held and to cry because of how the previous endowment had made me feel. The marriage ceremony itself left me also feeling very disappointed. It was bland and preachy.

I gladly dragged myself from the temple building, dreading the fact that we had arranged for wedding pictures to be taken on temple grounds. Oh well, at least there were beautiful flowers all around which, I can say, was the best thing about the entire day.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2019 05:30AM by presleynfactsrock.

IMO, especially prior to 1990, those who had been through the temple were made to feel terrified and threatened to not say what goes on in there. I should have paid attention to the red flags but I was so brainwashed. I did feel goosebumps and a thrill of fear each time during the movie when Satan would turn to the audience and threaten us if we didn't do as was told to us. Our first time going through was in 1983. It took me until 2 years ago, after finding out the truth of the MMM, to realize that the penalties and oaths had connections with the MMM. After the massacre was done, John D. Lee and his henchmen "buried" the dead and afterwards, they all stood in a prayer circle and did the oaths and penalties, swearing to never reveal anything that happened to their wives,families,anyone,not even among themselves. Those men had all been endowed in a temple before coming west, so they were performing temple rites. That moment was when the lightbulb clicked on for me and I was not going to be part of a mafioso organization any longer. We then told our kids everything that went on in the temple prior to 1990.

I guess it was a good thing that I was exhausted from a rough work-week plus an overnight bus-ride to the Atlanta temple.

Of course, I had been through the temple prep class, which didn't prepare me for anything besides coming home, getting into my jammies and falling promptly off to sleep.

I must have been too tired to react viscerally to all the throat-slitting and disemboweling material. I remember hearing it, and thinking in a disconnected sort of way, "This is kind of weird." But I was too numb to react.

I remember wondering when the seriously spiritual material was going to kick in. I was still wondering when the show was over and we were hustled out. And of course, all the ward members who had gone on that trip were beaming at me and asking didn't I think it was absolutely SPESHUL.

I was stunned, all right, but not for any reason they wanted to hear. On one of my first visits to RfM, I read the recollections of somebody else who had been rather appalled at the temple, and I just started crying. How validating that was!

I wish I remembered who made that comment. Realizing that I wasn't alone in thinking that the temple was anything BUT a sacred place and experience was exactly what I needed to hear.

I went to the local temple just once after that, when I was mentally already heading toward the EXIT sign. That visit confirmed my previous feelings.

>
> I wish I remembered who
> made that comment.
>

It could have been anyone and everyone who went through!!


My take on it, coming out, was that no way could a Supreme Being be involved with the silly shenanigans that I'd just been through. So it made the mormon church just a nice social organization; good times, good people! So I went ahead and did the mission...my way.

I guess everyone should listen to Bednar - he has the potential to be the longest living Profit in the history of ChurchCo.

But seriously, ChurchCo has always taught SECRECY about the rituals in the temple. I remember asking Mom & Dad about the temple when I was young and Dad would always say he COULD NOT talk about it. So there you go. Maybe Bednar's memory has already started failing him?

Take today's kids - if you tell them they are going to make covenants that, in times past, could result in disembowelment and slit necks if they were broken - I mean hell - what loving parent would want to leak this to their children! This church is just completely effed-up!

He said that church members have erred on the side of caution of revealing to much about the temple??? No sh$& Batman, when I went through I was told if I reveled the wrong thing I said I would rather have my throat slit for God sake. Sooooooo ya I was a little careful dumb ass.

Bednar sucks!

So its, okay to talk about the oil and ponchos?

Emperor-Librarian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So its, okay to talk about the oil and ponchos?


Yes, Cisco.

Members/ 'church' 'mis-"leaders"' lie at least once a day, (depending on how many times they open their mouths).

Never seen such lies, omissions, changes, misunderstandings, cover-ups, fabrications, stories or explanations.